MALVERN WASTE REMOVAL ACT (CONTINUED)
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
MALVERN WASTE REMOVAL ACT (CONTINUED)
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for second reading of Bill 174, An Act to provide for the Removal of Certain Waste from the Malvern Area.
Mr. Kennedy: Mr. Speaker, just before we start, I would ask the members to join me in welcoming the Mississauga South Progressive Conservative Women's Association.
Mr. Pollock: Mr. Speaker, I rise to proceed with the debate on Bill 174. I believe I left off with a reference to the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson) having gone to the Bancroft area to tell the people there that he was going to lead a delegation to Ottawa to try to keep the mine open.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): I caution the honourable member that we are talking about Bill 174, An Act to provide for the Removal of Certain Waste from the Malvern area. I have cautioned the member several times, and I warn him that should he not be speaking to the Bill 174, or seem not to be speaking very clearly to the subject, I will find it necessary to tell him to take his seat.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker: I feel absolutely compelled to rise and state that the honourable member has been trying to draw a connection between the Bancroft site, which was one of the sites chosen for the disposal of this waste, and the problems of the uranium industry in Bancroft, which of course has a great deal to do with radiation. I feel that the connection has been brilliantly made to this point, and I --
The Acting Speaker: I thank you for that point of order, but it is not a point of order.
Mr. Pollock: Mr. Speaker, I left off by referring to the member for London Centre having come up to my riding and saying he was going to lead a delegation to Ottawa to keep the mine open. Of course, the mine is where they were going to dump this contaminated soil from the Malvern subdivision.
Mr. Breaugh: See?
Mr. Pollock: Yes.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Just let him finish the sentence.
Mr. Pollock: Anyway, now that that mine is closed, they will not be able to dump that soil there at least. I hope they will not; I feel quite certain they will not.
When the member for London Centre went up there, he mentioned that the bridging program of the Minister of Natural Resources (Mr. Pope) did not relate to the mine. Those miners, he claimed, were used to working underground, not in the woods. So I would say to the member for London Centre that the bridging program was funded mostly by his colleagues in Ottawa, the federal government.
Basically that is about all I wanted to add, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether the member for Hastings-Peterborough said he was going to oppose the bill.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Yes, very clearly.
Mr. Nixon: So the member for Hastings-Peterhorough is going to oppose the bill. And the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton) cannot be very strongly in support of it, because he indicated clearly in answer to a question about a week ago that this elaborate procedure brought to the House by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) was simply to soothe the worried and troubled minds of the people in the Malvern area. Far be it from me to agree with him, but he is the Minister of the Environment and he sits at the left hand of the government House leader himself.
It looks as if the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs once again is having a little difficulty drawing his supporters into line. I notice that the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, like his colleague the chief government whip (Mr. Gregory), is in the House tonight for some unknown reason. Quite often the chief government whip does not attend the House except when a vote is pending; so it appears to me that the member for Hastings-Peterborough is going to be moved farther back and farther to the right if he votes against the government on this important bill.
I must say that this is a serious matter, and I know it is because the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is so concerned about it. There probably are not very many people who will read the record of this debate, but I certainly presume that every one of the good people who live in Malvern and who have been concerned for so long about the radiation in the soil in their backyards will read it. If they do, I want to assure them through Hansard of the continuing concern of their provincial member.
I work with the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs fairly regularly, and he is normally unflappable; but this matter has flapped him, and he is doing his best to keep his supporters in line so that Bill 174 will pass second reading and this matter will not be further delayed. A succession of almost unbelievable delays has contributed to the state of mind of the residents who are concerned with this bill, a state of mind the Minister of the Environment has expressed his concern about on these several occasions.
I personally have to take the bill on its merits. I thought my colleague the member for Huron- Bruce (Mr. Elston) made an excellent presentation in leading off the debate on this bill for the official opposition, because it has been our concern that the government has set aside too readily the provisions of its own legislation that are designed to provide the kinds of safeguards for our citizens and our communities that have been put in place by all the members of the Legislature.
8:10 p.m.
I believe the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs was Minister of Education in those years going back to 1974 and 1975, when these cornerstones of environmental protection were lowered into place by the government of the day, led by the same Premier (Mr. Davis) we have now. I well recall how those shored up the leaky dikes in the government policy, having to do with their inadequate response to environmental problems during the early 1970s.
Pollution Probe, headed by Dr. Chant himself, of such outstanding reputation, and environmental groups from right across the province had provided a report card on the Conservative government of Ontario and found them failing -- absolutely F minus -- in the provision of programs to safeguard the community.
Then we got the Environmental Assessment Act, the Environmental Protection Act and quite a panoply of leading, innovative legislative enactments; and these are now being set aside once again. I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to section 7, which reads as follows:
"7(1) The following do not apply in respect of the undertaking:
"1. The Environmental Assessment Act.
"2. The Planning Act.
"3. The regulations and bylaws made under or in relation to the acts mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 2.
"(2) Notwithstanding part V of the Environmental Protection Act, the director under the part is not required to hold a hearing or to consider submissions from persons other than the applicant for approval before exercising his powers under section 38 of that act."
It goes on to say:
"(3) No provision of any other act or of any regulation or bylaw applies or shall be applied so as to conflict with a provision of this act."
There is no way that we in the official opposition can support the bill that sets aside these statutes.
As a matter of fact, I was leading the official opposition in the election in which I was trying to replace the government in 1975, and I heard the Premier, the then Minister of the Environment and even the Minister of Education himself, in defending their rather shaky record, say that at least they had latterly brought in regulations and enactments that would protect our citizens.
Now they are to be set aside in a situation which the Minister of the Environment considers to be only of superficial importance and necessary only to protect the political reputation of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, who is carrying this legislation.
The other absolutely unacceptable part is that there is no indication of where the radioactive waste will be dumped once they dig it out of the backyards of these 22 lots.
Members may recall that there was a strong move on the part of the previous Minister of the Environment to set up a solid waste dump in that part of southwestern Ontario right along Lake Erie at South Cayuga.
There is no reason to believe that the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, in his almost irrational approach to this legislation, may not try to persuade his colleagues to dump the stuff down in southwestern Ontario.
There is no reason to believe he will not send it up to the riding of my honourable friend the member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Pollock) and try to jam it down the mines that have since been closed.
He may even try to put his undoubted pressure on his colleagues in the government of Canada to have them take it at Chalk River or Base Borden, although I believe it was the provincial member in the area of Base Borden who closed off that possible alternative.
I am glad to see the provincial member from the Base Borden area, the member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. McCague), is in the House tonight and may very well take part in this debate, because there were those who thought at one time that the obvious solution was to take it out of Scarborough in this great Metropolitan Toronto area and put it up in the wastes of Base Borden.
I, for one, never proposed that, but there were those who thought that was a proper means of disposing of this material, which the Minister of the Environment has described as only having residual and unimportant radioactivity -- I am paraphrasing his words.
The member for Dufferin-Simcoe, very properly protecting his citizens, said: "Not here. Not even on federal property." Knowing his feelings about all things federal, I thought he might want to irradiate them, but he put the kibosh on that.
There was some thought that Chalk River, which is already a repository of a good deal of radioactive waste, might be used, but Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. has indicated that it is fully utilized and that there is no way the waste can go there.
The minister expects the House to accept the setting aside of all the environmental protections and asks us to trust him. I trust him personally but not with the disposal of the radioactive dirt from the backyards of his 22 constituents; no, sir, not without a hearing. The proposals in the bill are completely unacceptable.
The minister now seems to be fairly soft on the Beare Road disposal site, although at one time he said there was no way that it would go there. But it appears that to satisfy his constituents, who have a legitimate complaint, particularly since this matter has been delayed for so long, the thought may be that they will hawk it out of there, put it in trucks and take it up to Beare Road. They may just leave it on the trucks and park it in the backyard of the minister's estate in the Scarborough area. I do not know whether that is his intent or not.
Somehow, the minister has had very clear sailing in his political career except for a couple of very troublesome problems that have been loaded on his broad shoulders. He has undertaken, over the years, to settle the continuing problem of the residents of the Toronto Islands. I do not want to go into that, because you might call me to order, Mr. Speaker, but that has been a difficult one for him to deal with and it keeps popping up, even yet. There is no doubt in my mind that before we get to the next election and replace the present administration with one that is going to apply truth, justice and reasonableness, i.e., a Liberal administration, we are going to have some more amendments to deal with the island residents.
The solution the minister is proposing for ridding his particular corner of Scarborough of this radioactive dirt is not acceptable to us. It is a shame that it has been delayed by so many Keystone Kops procedures, some of them federal but most of them the responsibility of the provincial government. This one surely has an obvious answer, and my colleague who spoke first for us on this made it clear in response to a number of interjections from the minister that there should be an environmental assessment of a proposal to dispose of this material wherever the government finds a suitable place for disposal.
Certainly the enactment itself says that all they need is the approval of the owner of the property. Even now, the minister is turning around to talk to the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Wiseman). He may even be asking him to go out and buy a couple of acres of land up in Brant county or somewhere like that. Then he will say: "We have a brilliant idea. We are going to send this radioactive stuff out of Scarborough and up to Brant county. The law says all we need is the approval of the owner, and the owner is my colleague the Minister of Government Services, who owns land all over the place."
Under the statute, that would be proper. There would be no way that the good citizens of Brant, who are somewhat threatened by this bill, could ever have any kind of hearing. There would be no recourse other than the ballot box, and they have already done everything they can through the ballot box to throw this mob out.
I am very much concerned, and under those circumstances we certainly cannot support the bill. I hope that the minister, being the reasonable and moderate man we have all come to know, will withdraw this bill or else announce that he will put in a subsection 1(a) calling for a full environmental assessment of any proposal once he has indicated where the material is to be dumped. deposited or whatever the proper verb is. As a matter of fact, the Minister of the Environment, when this was introduced months ago, said, "Of course, we will know where it is going to be dumped by the time the bill comes forward for second reading."
It is really incredible that the government of Ontario, with a $23-billion budget and with all the majesty of a government long in office, has not been able to solve this problem. It is surely an indication that they have been too long in office and are running out of the mental wherewithal to solve even the simpler problems of our community.
8:20 p.m.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I thank my caucus for the enormous applause.
Mr. Nixon: It could go to Mississauga.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. Nixon: See, Dougie is gone.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: There are uncalled-for threats from the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk.
The Acting Speaker: Indeed, and you do have the floor.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Thank you. I will take it with me.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to Bill 174. It is strange how far we have come from the development of a luminous watch factory some place in downtown Toronto many years ago to having a debate now on providing extraordinary, enormous powers to the government of Ontario to get rid of the productive waste of that company back whenever it was in the prehistory of Metropolitan Toronto.
There is something strange in the air these days. Something bizarre is happening in the province. We must be going through a continuous full moon or something this fall. We are having economic difficulties, it is true. We have problems getting rid of waste, it is true. What kind of responses do we get from this government?
We get Bill 174, which destroys every act we currently have for the protection of the environment of Ontario to get rid of the waste of this watch factory which has been plaguing the people of McClure Crescent in Scarborough.
We have problems with the economy; so the government brings in Bill 170 and takes away all the rights of public service employees in Ontario, abolishing the rights that trade unionists have worked for over the years in an attempt to --
Mr. Nixon: Mr. Speaker, he is a little off topic.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am drawing parallels, and I believe it is valid no matter what the whip of that party says.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: We are on Bill 174; you are talking about Bill 179.
The Acting Speaker: Order.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Mr. Speaker, I presume you find it in order for me to draw parallels and that is what I am doing.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: That is not a parallel at all.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The parallel is bringing in extraordinary, ridiculous powers to deal with problems when the government is not even dealing with the problems at hand.
A third example would be a bill we have not yet had the pleasure of debating in this House, Bill 180, which is the "what if" or "when if" bill. That is, if and when the federal government decides it will bring in wage controls for the rest of the provinces we will go along with whatever it comes up with.
My God, what kind of insane response to problems does this represent by this government? What incredible overreaction! What incredible facility to get rid of the rights of people, and to destroy existing legislation built up year after year for the protection of individuals in this society, just to deal with some problem. That is what Bill 174 is doing. That is why it is a parallel.
If I might point to page 2, since you have it there, Mr. Speaker, the rights that are being trampled on in this bill are not inconsiderable. The work put into bringing forward these acts is not inconsiderable. The Environmental Assessment Act and the Planning Act will not apply to the disposition of this waste. Those acts took an awful lot of arguing and an awful lot of development in bringing them in to protect the people of this province.
Regulations and bylaws made under or in relation to those acts mentioned above will not have any effect on the disposition of the waste from this watch factory many years ago. The Environmental Protection Act, which is often pushed aside by this government, will not apply in this situation and neither will anything under the Municipal Act.
The whole infrastructure we have developed to protect individuals in this society from environmental pollution, and to give them some right and some say to oppose the imposition of waste being dumped on them or to oppose their air being polluted, is going to be taken away because we have a lack of guts by this government or the federal government -- it is this government in this case, because it is this government this applies to -- to take action to remove the waste from around the homes of people on McClure Crescent, which needs to be done, and put it some place where it is not going to hurt people.
What we are dealing with here is an incredible overreaction to a political problem. We have known about the possible low radiation from that area for many years. It was not until we had an election come upon us that the government felt impelled to act. A number of speakers have already mentioned that.
What we have is very low radiation being found around 22 lots on McClure Crescent in the Malvern area of Scarborough, which may or may not have an effect on the health, especially of the children, in that area. There is differing opinion, but there is enough reason to be concerned. If the soil were put anywhere else except where people are living on it day in and day out, it could not be considered a major environmental hazard in my view, just from my reading of learned articles on low-level radiation problems. I am one, as members may know from my video display terminal work, who is concerned about low-frequency radiation and that whole question.
We have a government that has not had the guts to say it will move the soil because it needs to be moved, since there is fear there among the people on McClure Crescent -- will move it to an area which is not a populated area and where it can be controlled, but do it within the law. It is amazing how quickly we will throw away due process just because we have a bit of a sticky problem.
It is amazing how the inflation board, which is a board which has no concept of due process in it, will hammer the heads of workers, and in the case of getting rid of this soil the government will circumvent everything we have built up in terms of due process for the people who may be the recipients of it. As opposition in this House, or as the member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Pollock) or members for other areas who have some right to be concerned about where this soil may be put, we are expected to buy a pig in a poke. After all of the dithering and wondering that has gone on for the last --
Mr. Elston: We are expected to authorize it, not buy it.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Authorize it, approve it today, to say, "Yes, we will spare the people of McClure Crescent," and I, the Scarborough member, say, "Yes, let's spare them as quickly as possible from the fear involved with this." But they want us to say that we do not give a darn where else it goes, that we leave it up to the government to decide where the heck it is going to put this stuff and it is not going to let anybody have any say at all about it.
The Prime Minister of this country recently talked about trust. Therefore, I presume the Liberal Party of Ontario will want to trust this government to choose where it is going to dispose of this, the community Liberals to my right, far to my right --
Mr. Breaugh: The CP.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The CP, as we call them.
Mr. Nixon: The CP are your friends.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: God only know.
They expect us to just trust government in this area. It would be irresponsible for us to accept this precedent. Forget what is going on in this particular problem in Scarborough at the moment and this particular bill in terms of the Malvern soil, this is the principle we are expected to endorse. We know a pollution problem exists in one area and we are having difficulties getting rid of it through the normal process, so we are expected to say that none of that process should apply, that we should be willing to just throw up our hands and say: "Oh yes, you guys do whatever you want with it. Forget everything we have built up for the last 15 years in terms of process and you do whatever you will with it."
My God, if we can do that for Malvern, we can do it for the Leslie Street spit. We can do it for Cayuga. My God, we have seen that example already. We can do it for any kind of environmental problem that comes up. This will set a precedent that will destroy everything that has been developed in terms of environmental process and environmental law in Ontario over the last decade.
I do not understand why the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) does not understand that. As the member for Scarborough North, he must be worried about the people on McClure Crescent. He must want to be able to take away that soil from them at the earliest opportunity. I understand that and I sympathize with that. But, my God, how can he expect us to respond to this kind of thing in anything but an obstreperous and angry fashion?
8:30 p.m.
Surely our duty here is to protect not only the citizens of McClure Crescent but the citizens of Ontario from environmental damage. We have developed the mechanisms for doing that and now the minister wants us to throw them away, because he has some problems of intestinal fortitude in terms of procedure, of moving through the normal channels.
We just cannot do that. It is true there must come a time when we have to bite the bullet on environmental concerns. That is absolutely true, but there are other ways of doing it. This bill not only says to us that we should exempt it from any kind of hearing at all, any kind of process, but also that nobody should be allowed to take it to the courts. I think the member for Hastings-Peterborough said any court process that is involved right at the moment cannot be pursued.
The government tries to make us feel a little bit better about it by saying, "The owner and the occupier of a place may consent to the designation of the place by the Lieutenant Governor." That is just a slough, because the potential places for this are not in the backyard of the member from Brant or other members of the government. The place where this is likely to reside is either a location owned by the government of Ontario or by the federal government, not somewhere that we are expecting there to be any kind of conflict with an owner saying, "No, it is not safe here."
There is a deal going on in the background. There is a decision being made that is implicit in this and implicit in the promises of this minister to get rid of the soil from McClure Crescent. It indicates that they know where they want it to go. They know that now but they will not tell us, as honourable members of this Legislature who have every right to be concerned about the wellbeing of other people in this province. They will not tell us what kind of protection they are willing to give the people in the area where they dump this. They are not willing to tell us what kind of precautions they will take into consideration. They are not willing to tell the member for Hastings-Peterborough that it will not be dumped in some area around Bancroft -- what is the township?
Mr. Pollock: Faraday.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Faraday township -- in a fashion that will anger the residents of that community. Instead they are keeping it a secret and saying, "You guys go along with us." We just cannot do that. We have to oppose this bill.
If we look at the history of what has gone on in terms of how we came about even having this bill before us and why normal processes were not undertaken, it is a travesty in the history of government's irresponsibility, of individual members jumping up on a parochial basis and saying, "Yes, dump it somewhere, but not in my backyard." It is just an avoidance of social responsibility at every level.
Whether it was the fight to keep it away from Bancroft, or from the Barrie landfill site or Camp Borden, no matter how we look at it, people team together, often misinformed, in my view, as to the potential dangers of this particular soil, with no idea that the government was actually going to go through a process where they could feel they had had a say and they would have their fears eased, if not totally dissolved. Individuals in those areas, people in Scarborough, in the Bancroft area, and in the Camp Borden area, rallied together to fight it being in their backyard. This government, or the federal government, backed off the normal process that would be undertaken when having this kind of waste disposed of.
Either we are saying that all the rules we have put forward in this House in the last 15 years are irrelevant and do not work --
Hon. Mr. Gregory: But where do you want it to go? Why don't you say?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I am going to say.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: You want both sides of the fence but nothing else.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order. The member for Scarborough West has the floor.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The government whip in his high office will be pleased to know I will be saying where I would like it to go.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Sure you would. The fact is you have no idea.
The Acting Speaker: Carry on and ignore these interruptions.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Is there any possible way you can ask the whip to listen carefully as I say this next line?
Hon. Mr. Gregory: I have been listening carefully for 20 minutes and the member has not said anything.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: I have said a great deal and I will be saying where I think it should go and how I think we should deal with it. That is not going to stop me from attacking the process that has gone on up to this point.
When one is dealing with the fears of people in society, whether founded or unfounded, one does not deal with those fears in a heavy-handed and secretive way, the way this legislation is dealing with them. All that does is add to fear.
If the minister wants to tell people that he wants to put it in a safe area that is not of any real consequence to those individuals, as the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton) has said, if he wants to tell them that this waste causes no potential harm to people, he should not bring in a bill which takes away every right of anybody to know anything about the process or any ability to intervene in the process, any ability to ask questions in the process or to raise a claim of being unjustly dealt with. All this kind of a bill does is make people say, "My God, they may dump it in my backyard and I am not going to be able to do a darned thing about it."
If the government believes this should be dealt with and dealt with quickly, it has an obligation to say to the members of this House where they intend to put this and to ask for our support in moving that waste and then guarantee that there will be an assessment process as well.
I would like to make a suggestion to the minister, if I might. I have done this in private and I will do it publicly for the benefit of the whip of the Tory party. I will say it now. There are any number of areas where this could go. I am convinced of that. My suggestion at the moment would be that we have a couple of obligations:
First, we have an obligation to remove it as quickly as possible so those parents on McClure Crescent do not go through any more of the personal emotional turmoil they are going through. Second, we have an obligation to put it in some kind of place which all reasonable people will consider safe in the short term while we indicate where it must go for the long term and have the full assessment hearings take place on that side of things.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Is that it?
Mr. R. F. Johnston: What I am saying to the whip --
Mr. McClellan: Why don't you listen for a minute?
Hon. Mr. Gregory: I am listening, Ross, but I have not heard a thing.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: The minister has heard three points to this point. I do not know why he is being obstreperous when I am, in fact, trying to be helpful at this point. There is no need for me to go out on a limb on this and to mention where I would put it. The obligation is on the minister. If I wanted to play this in a totally partisan fashion then I could just attack the minister and sit down. In fact, I am going to be suggesting something which will not be particularly popular in Scarborough, but which I hope is a responsible attitude to this and would be a better approach to this than just the closed-mindedness and the fear that is involved in Bill 174.
We need to put it into a temporary location and not look for the permanent location immediately. That temporary location must have a time limit on it so the people in that area where it goes will not have any reason to be concerned that it is going to be there forever and ever. The time limit must be long enough for the full assessment process of whatever long-range placement for this soil is going to be chosen, to take place.
I do not want to be hard and fixed on this but I am suggesting something like a five-year maximum temporary placement. As far as I am concerned, as a Scarborough politician, that could be the Beare Road landfill site. That is not going to be a popular thing in Scarborough. It could also be the Bruce site or Camp Borden. What we want to do is to put it some place where people will not be living on top of it, where we can cover it with clay and asphalt on top of that, and if necessary, soil. We could have it there for a limited length of time that is guaranteed safe, up to five years. or whatever seemed reasonable for going through the process, as we find a permanent location and try to make sure that people do not have access to that area.
8:40 p.m.
I do not think anybody in this House will disagree that if we have it in some place like the Beare landfill site, for example, under those kinds of conditions, it would not hurt people. One would have to be living on top of that soil for it to be a potential danger to the children of a community, and it would most likely be children who would be affected. Surely nobody in this House can disagree with that.
I would be prepared to take my lumps for that in the community on the short-term basis, getting it away from the homes of people who did not ask for this, putting it in a place which could be semi-secure for a number of years while we get it into some place where we can go through the entire environmental assessment process for guaranteeing that it will be safe.
I hope the minister will come before this House in a responsible fashion before this debate is over and say he is not going to perpetrate this unknown on us, this augmentation of fear that is involved in Bill 174, but instead will level with the House about where he would like it to go, whether or not he thinks my proposal or some variation of that proposal is a workable suggestion and move an amendment to this bill which would allow us to do that.
I do not mind having, on a brief interim basis, the eradication of the validity of those various acts, to get it away from those people who are going to be hurt, but I cannot allow us to put it some place for perpetuity with no opportunity for the Environment Assessment Act, the Environmental Protection Act or the Municipal Act to be invoked by people. That is just a basic abrogation of the civil rights of the people of this province that we have fought long and hard to gain for them. I do not think this is an unreasonable recommendation I am making.
There will be opposition, but in rational terms we can make the argument for a site like Beare Road landfill. I even suggested to the member for Hastings-Peterborough that we can make the argument that we could enclose this 4,000 tons of soil in his area on a limited basis of four to five years so that it could be contained in a way that would not be of any concern to people. If we made it clear that it would not be for any longer than that, or if there was an extension it would be just for a limited period of time if the minister felt a short extension was necessary, people would accept that as a realistic concept.
At the same time we have to say very quickly what kinds of options, say, two or three, we should be putting forward about where it might go in the long-term and that we would expect the entire assessment process will take place. The minister can choose which one he prefers to go under, as far as I am concerned, if he does not want it to apply to the other acts but wishes it to be covered by one of the acts involved. These are the options and this is the investigation we will undertake.
It is not an easy thing to make deals in public, obviously. It is not an easy thing to make deals when one is speaking. But surely that is more reasonable than a bill which takes away all the rights that we have worked so hard to put forward, just to get rid of this 4,000 tons of mildly radioactive soil. We must remember that the radioactivity in the soil is nothing like as great as in the tailings heaps that are around Elliot Lake or around Bancroft. We know there is nothing like the radioactivity in this soil as there is in those areas. We can come up with some kind of a compromise on this which will be acceptable to all.
I am hoping the silence of the minister is not to be seen as intransigence and that some time during the course of this debate he will come forward with his opinions as to how we might do this before we finalize any kind of an act which allows the government to move in this direction.
Otherwise, I would suggest in all sincerity that he will be offending the principles upon which this House operates by bringing forward this kind of legislation and he will be offending all those people who have fought for and believe in the right to some protection from environmental hazards in this province, who have believed in good faith that they should trust their government and their legislators to protect them and that a travesty of justice to get rid of these 4,000 tons of soil is a very steep price to pay for protecting the people of McClure Crescent when there are other options available.
I encourage the minister to use his abilities and his staff to come up with that option, to use the fact that some of us in the opposition at least are not sure that the members of the Liberal Party are open to this kind of compromise and to come forward with some kind of suggestion before this bill is passed into law and the people of the province are in the long term offended by its draconian nature.
Mr. G. I. Miller: Mr. Speaker, it gives me some pleasure to rise and speak on this bill, because I think that a couple of years ago when we were dealing with all of Ontario's waste we went through similar circumstances with the government trying to locate in one area in South Cayuga by not following the proper procedure in the legislation provided to protect the people of Ontario.
The act being brought forward to provide for the removal of certain waste from the Malvern area reminds me of that period in the Legislature, and I would just like to rise and speak on behalf of the people. While we have a problem and a concern about the fact that people are living with this in their backyards, I think we do have to come up with a plan that will be acceptable and give the people the rights they deserve to participate in any proposal that is being brought forth.
I am not going to take a lot of time. I think our critic has spoken well on it. The member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) has also participated in the debate. So with these few remarks I would just like to say that the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton) should propose and move forward with the proper legislation rather than by an ad hoc method such as is being proposed here.
Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, I think this is a very important debate. I am kind of sorry there are not more people in the House.
Mr. Bradley: I came in because I heard you were speaking.
Mr. McClellan: I knew that. I think it would be interesting if more members of the government were taking --
Mr. Nixon: Why don't you ring the bells?
Mr. McClellan: No, I do not want to do that, but you can feel free to do it if you believe some injustice is taking place here.
I am surprised that more members of the government are not taking part in the debate. I suspect the member for Hastings-Peterborough is not the only member of the government party who has a certain sense of foreboding and apprehension -- not to say, perhaps, that the trapdoor is about to be sprung from under his Tory feet, because I do not think the ultimate decision as to where this stuff will be dumped will necessarily follow party lines.
I do not think it is any sure thing that we will have the same kind of sorry spectacle we had with respect to South Cayuga, where it was clear that the ultimate choice there, regardless of the scientific advice, was to find a Liberal riding to dump it in. I am not sure that holds true around nuclear or radioactive waste, and I am not sure it holds true around the contents of the backyards on McClure Crescent.
Mr. McGuigan: At least it didn't work.
Mr. McClellan: Yes. Thank goodness it didn't work. One would have thought the government would have learned something from the Cayuga fiasco: that it cannot treat these kinds of problems in that way, that it has to be more straightforward and up-front with people and that it cannot try to finesse its way out of these kinds of problems.
To me the real dangers of this bill have been set out very ably by a number of speakers in all three parties tonight. But one of the real concerns that I have has to do with whether this bill will be regarded as a precedent which then will apply to the disposal of nuclear waste.
8:50 p.m.
That may appear to be farfetched to my friend the government House leader, but I do not think it is. Those of us who have expressed opposition to Ontario's gung-ho approach to nuclear development have based that opposition largely on the problem of nuclear waste disposal. We think it is irresponsible to make a major commitment to nuclear expansion in Canada or anywhere else when we do not know what to do with the nuclear waste.
No one in this House is going to stand up, whether he is pro-nuclear or anti-nuclear, and say, "I volunteer to accept the nuclear waste from Bruce, Darlington or wherever." Nobody is going to say, "I volunteer my community as a receptable for the poisonous, radioactive waste and I am willing to volunteer my community to be a guinea pig to make sure we have some place to put this stuff."
We have no place to put nuclear waste, so it does not matter whether it is the litter from some 1940s glow-in-the-dark watch factory, which is what we have at McClure Crescent, or whether it is the radioactive garbage from one of our multibillion dollar nuclear power plants. The problem is exactly the same. We do not know what to do with radioactive garbage. We do not know where to put it, or how to store it or how dangerous it is.
What does the government do? It comes along with Bill 174 and says, "We have this problem at McClure Crescent so we are going to impose a solution on some community, somewhere." That solution will wipe out the Environmental Assessment Act. It will wipe out the provisions of the Planning Act and the Environmental Protection Act.
It has been pointed out by the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon) and my colleague the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) that there is a little bit of flim-flam in section 4 of this bill. On reading the bill, it looks as if this stuff will not be dumped on anybody unless the owner and the occupier agree to accept it, that the radioactive waste will not be imposed on some poor farmer or some poor land owner somewhere in rural Ontario.
Subsection 5(2) reads, "The Lieutenant Governor in Council shall not designate a place" -- that is a place to dump this stuff -- "under subsection 1 unless the owner and the occupier of the place have consented to the designation." That is, the place will be designated as a receptacle for the radioactive waste.
It has of course been pointed out that if it is crown land, it is Ontario which is the owner and occupier, so the Lieutenant Governor in Council will simply say, "Yes, we willingly accept this radioactive garbage on behalf of ourselves." If it is the government of Canada, I assume the atomic energy commission will somehow be brought in.
It is really not a bright idea. It is not going to wash. If the government was trying to persuade us that the rights of land owners or small communities in rural Ontario or northern Ontario are somehow protected by sections 4 and 5, it is just not there. It does not fool anybody.
It is not a question of fooling us. The member from Hastings-Peterhorough (Mr. Pollock) has already expressed his anxiety. I am sure there are a number of other back-benchers who feel the way members of the opposition feel.
It is an extension of what Jane Jacobs has called the politics of victimization. If one has a problem in one community, in this case McClure Crescent in Scarborough, the solution to the problem is to create a problem for somebody else. The problem is dumped from point A to point B.
We saw the same process around expressways. Jane Jacobs coined the phrase, "the politics of victimization" when the problem of traffic congestion on Marlee was solved by extending it southward to other communities. The government got into the habit of solving problems in one community by transferring them to another. That does not solve anything. It is not a solution.
As my colleague the member for Scarborough West has pointed out, Bill 179 is doing exactly the same thing. We have a problem in the private sector and we solve it by dumping on people in the public sector. The politics of victimization does not add to anything; it is simply a way of transferring misery from one group to another.
Bill 174 exemplifies that approach par excellence. There is a problem on McClure Crescent; simple, send it somewhere else; send it to Bancroft, to Camp Borden, to northern Ontario; get it out of here. The minister says, "I do not care where it goes as long as it is out of my neighbourhood."
That is no good. It is no good to wipe out all the protection of the law -- the Environmental Assessment Act, the Planning Act, the Environmental Protection Act -- in order to be able to foist this problem from Scarborough on somewhere else. That is not a solution. I am sure the minister realizes this is not a good way of dealing with things.
I wish the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton) was here this evening. I know he was here this afternoon and I am sure he has a good reason for not being here. I hope he is able to join us when we get to the clause-by-clause discussion of this bill. I would like to ask him a couple of questions about the radioactive soil on McClure Crescent.
I believe my friend the government House leader is genuinely concerned about the families on McClure Crescent. I believe the children of those families are exposed to a health risk as a result of the radioactive soil. I want to spend a minute talking about that. When we are talking of moving radioactive soil from one place to another, it is important we discuss the potential health risk and the potential health hazard.
We are talking about the byproduct from glow-in-the-dark watches. When I was a kid, it was all the rage to have a watch that used to light up half one's face when one looked at it. It was the fad to have all kinds of X-ray machines. One put in a quarter to X-ray one's feet or hands. Those of us who as children were invited to expose ourselves to God knows what levels of radiation, in our more gloomy moments are given to wonder how many years we took off our lives as a result of doing that.
One wonders if the irresponsible attitude towards potential health risks that permitted glow-in-the-dark watches to be given to children and super strong X-ray machines to be treated as children's pinball machines has really gone away. That attitude says, "Unless it kills people, unless there is a body count, it is not really a risk. Unless we have a pile of dead bodies stacked up like cordwood, we do not really have to worry about the health risk." That attitude is still with us.
I believe there is a health risk on McClure Crescent. To be precise, we cannot say for certain that the children on McClure Crescent are not exposed to a health hazard. The factual statement is we do not know. They may or may not be at risk, but we do not know. On the basis of the history of the last 35 years, we have no right to say to them that there is no health risk with nonorganic pollutants in this province and in this society.
9 p.m.
What we do know is that testing of the children on McClure Crescent was done, last June I believe. The testing revealed that at least one child who was exposed to the radioactive soil on McClure Crescent in Scarborough had a radioactive level in urine 46 times the level expected for adults in industrialized sectors.
I want to spend a few minutes to go through some material produced by the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice by Sister Rosalie Bertell and Dr. Michael Stogre. I am reading from a document they issued last June:
"One child in the McClure Crescent area of Scarborough has a level of radioactive lead in urine 46 times the expected level for adults in the industrialized sectors of North America. This finding may also indicate the child was exposed to 40 times the 'investigative level' set by the Atomic Energy Control Board in 1977 for radon daughter exposure in residences.
"Dr. H. D. Sharma of the Radiation Environment Management Systems Inc. located at the University of Waterloo, performed the urine analysis for McClure children exposed to radioactive soil in the summer of 1981. Dr. Rosalie Bertell and Dr. Michael Stogre of the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice had requested that the tests be done at the Ministry of Health's radiation laboratory, but the medical officer of health of Scarborough refused to authorize the test. Of the 51 children tested last summer, 50 had detectable levels of radioactivity in urine."
I will skip a bit, but let me continue to put this on the record:
"During the winter some of the urine samples were further analysed to determine the chemical composition of the radiation emitter and it was found to be lead 210, a decay product of radium. There is known contamination of the McClure Crescent backyards with radium waste.
"It was decided to retest four children in early spring to see if the findings of summer 1981 would be confirmed. Twenty-four-hour urine samples were taken from the two children with the highest and lowest, and the lowest was a zero radioactivity count on the first testing, as well as from two other children with medium to low counts. Other children were not retested.
"According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the average North American adult living in an industrial area excretes 0.05 picocuries per day of lead 210. Levels are higher for smokers. The results of the retests of the four children and a control adult, who is a former smoker, were as follows" -- and the levels of lead 210 in the urine were found to be 0.1 plus or minus 0.12 picocuries per day in the control subject, 2.30 plus or minus 0.15 picocuries per day in one of the children, 0.40 in another child, 0.17 in a third child and 0.00 in the fourth child. But one of the children had an exposure of 2.30 picocuries per day. As I pointed out at the beginning, that is 46 times the expected level.
I think that justifies the concern being shown by the local member, who also happens to be a minister in the cabinet and the government House leader. I would be surprised if he did not agree with me that these children are at risk. I would be surprised if he did not agree with me that there is a health risk in that community, on that street, to those children with readings such as those.
The interesting thing, of course, is that, for some mysterious reason, the medical officer of health in Scarborough insists there is no health risk. The Minister of the Environment insists there is no health risk and, as I started this section of my comments by saying I would like to have some discussion with the minister as to how he can take the position that there is no health risk on McClure Crescent, I simply do not understand that. I do not understand what kind of advice he is getting from his officials. I do not see how he can discard and discount the results of those findings. I think that is a kind of Russian roulette; it is intolerable in somebody who is charged with the protection of the environment of this province.
I do not understand why the Scarborough health department refused to authorize urine tests for the children on McClure Crescent. My colleague from Scarborough West points out that the medical officer of health has in the past pooh-poohed the hazard of asbestos. It is on record, back in 1974, 1975, 1976, when the subject of Johns-Manville was raised in this Legislature by Stephen Lewis, and Dr. Selikoff issued the first warning about the cancer epidemic that was going to come upon us as a result of asbestos exposure. The Scarborough medical officer of health was expressing a kind of benign attitude which history has certainly contradicted, to put it mildly. Now we continue to play the same kind of game with low level radiation, a game called, as I said, Russian roulette.
I suspect -- I am not a scientist, and I do not have that particular skill, but I hear the voices of the scientific community issuing the same kinds of warnings that Irving Selikoff was raising in the early 1970s, exactly the same kinds of warnings about radon daughters, about the kinds of things we are seeing on McClure Crescent, or at Elliot Lake or Chalk River. People in the scientific community are starting to raise their voices with increasing urgency in exactly the same way as Irving Selikoff raised his warnings about asbestos. We have just the same head-in-the-sand attitude by ministers of the crown and public health officials: "Don't worry about it. We do not have the bodies stacked up like cordwood, therefore, there is no problem."
I think my friend the House leader is genuinely concerned about the problems on McClure Crescent. He is faced with a cabinet that is not particularly helpful or sympathetic and never has been around these kinds of problems; and he has come up with a solution to his problem in his constituency. As a result of this debate, I hope he will take a good, hard, second look at it. The dangers of his solution are too enormous to permit that solution to continue forward because, as I said in the beginning, it will set a precedent for the disposal of nuclear wastes. That means, no community in this province will have the assurance that nuclear waste will not be dumped upon it without taking into consideration the provisions of the Environmental Assessment Act, the Planning Act, or the Environmental Protection Act,
No community in this province will be safe from the imposition of a nuclear garbage dump if this bill goes through and this precedent is established; not one single community, whether it be in southwestern Ontario, northern Ontario, central Ontario or eastern Ontario, will be able to say, "We know we can trust this government not to establish a nuclear garbage dump in our area without giving us the full protection of the statutes that our legislators have passed into law." Because once the precedent is established, it will be extended.
9:10 p.m.
So I would like to conclude by making a plea to my friend and colleague the government House leader to take the suggestion put forward by his colleague the member for Scarborough West and find a temporary site so that we can get the radioactive soil off McClure Crescent and into a safe storage place, and my friend for Scarborough West has suggested as one of the alternatives the Beare Road landfill site.
We are putting forward a concrete, specific, positive, constructive alternative: put it in the temporary storage site for a set period of time; during that period of time announce the designated site for long-term storage publicly and bring to bear all of the safeguards of the Environmental Assessment Act so the community that will be receiving this material on a permanent basis can have the assurance that it will be absolutely safe in its storage site.
I think this is a very constructive, positive, sensible and responsible alternative to Bill 174, and I hope the minister will accept it, will withdraw this bill and come back with a proposal based on this set of suggestions.
The Acting Speaker: The member for Ottawa East.
Mr. Samis: Est.
Mr. Roy: Good member.
Mr. Samis: I didn't say that. I said "est."
Mr. Roy: Words of wisdom. Yes. I thought for a while that the member for Cornwall was saying something derogatory --
The Acting Speaker: He is talking out of place as well.
Mr. Roy: He was saying it in French, and I am not going to make any attack on my dear colleague, who has been so gracious to me the last while. He has been somewhat misguided in his choice of teams in the World Series --
Mr. Samis: Next year, Albert.
Mr. Roy: -- and that matter should go on the record. I have no intention whatsoever --
Interjection.
The Acting Speaker: If he is going to make interjections and then be really called to order, he should be sitting in his own place.
Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, in no way am I going to attack my colleague the member for Cornwall, because --
The Acting Speaker: The honourable member is speaking to Bill 174, and the World Series is past.
Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, you understand that if another member had been so gracious to you in the last while, you would feel some sort of affection towards him as well. I want to put on the record that my colleague has been very generous in the last while over the proceedings of the World Series.
I am sure honourable members understand that for a modest and low-key gentleman such as me to get involved in a debate as important as this one, issues of great national and provincial importance must be involved. I am eternally grateful to my colleague the member for Huron-Bruce (Mr. Elston), who alerted me to the dictatorial and authoritarian powers that are involved in this legislation.
Those of us who pride ourselves on participating in the democratic process view this type of legislation with great concern. I intend to review it briefly to point out some of what I consider to be the major flaws or the major dictatorial aspects of this legislation, although I am sure my colleagues, including the member for Brant-Oxford-Norfolk (Mr. Nixon), dealt with some of the more dictatorial aspects of this bill.
I think all of us on both sides of the House recognize that there is a problem existing in Malvern and that to solve this problem the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs may well have required legislation. In my opinion, to solve the problem the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs (Mr. Wells) did not require such heavy-handed legislation. That is one of the reasons why people on this side will be opposing the legislation.
We are talking about that very nice gentleman, the white-haired member for Scarborough North and government House leader, the man who has a reputation for a thousand compromises. He is low-key, he is one who proceeds by way of compromise. I am sure this legislation is foreign to all his basic instincts. That is why my colleagues and I are so surprised to see legislation that is so wide-ranging. What is happening, Tom? I should not say that; I got a frown from the Clerk. When I say Tom, I really mean the member for Scarborough North.
I have had occasion to know my colleague now for 10 or 11 years. What is it about the problem, a problem we all recognize, that required such drastic measures? What is it about the democratic process that was incapable of solving the problem in the Malvern area? Has such pressure been brought on him as a result of his being the local member that he has to resort to the heavy-handed and dictatorial powers he gives himself in this legislation?
Let us review some of the sections in the legislation. My colleagues have done that, I am sure, but I want to emphasize some of the points.
First, when the province deals with a municipality, we have created a Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Generally, it would be that minister who would be involved in the exchanges and rapport that would take place in solving this problem. But not in Bill 174; it is in the riding of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and, by God, he is the one who is going to deal with that, not the member for Ottawa South (Mr. Bennett), the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. That is not good enough to solve this problem. It is the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. This type of action is not the business of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Hon. Mr. Wells: All the tough ones.
Mr. Roy: All the tough ones, he says. I guess so. One would have thought having such a personal involvement in that problem, the minister at least would say to the Lieutenant Governor in Council: "Look, don't give me all those powers; I may get carried away. Give it to my colleague the member for Ottawa South. He is far more restrained. He will not get carried away with these dictatorial powers."
Here we have a situation where the minister just grabs at these powers. He generally has nothing to do with this type of action. But in this case, under this bill, he has asserted himself. Not only is he the local member, but also he is not taking chances: he is the local member, he is the government House leader and he is going to be the boss under this legislation.
9:10 p.m.
I say to my colleague the member for Scarborough North, this resembles some of the stunts pulled by Idi Amin when he got carried away --
Mr. Samis: He weighs 300 pounds, Albert.
Mr. Roy: I know, but can one see this kind-looking, white-haired gentleman across the way grasping at such powers, wanting such dictatorial powers given to him under this legislation? That is what he does under subsection 2(2). I am sure you read every word in this bill, Mr. Speaker. That section says:
"Except with the written consent of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, no agreement may be entered into under subsection (1) after six months after the day that this Act comes into force."
In other words, after a period of time there can be no agreements without the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs saying so. That is the first section where he gets his powers.
The second section is section 10. It says:
"Upon the certificate of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs as to the amount of the actual and necessary expenses incurred by each of the borough of Scarborough, and the owner and the occupier of a place designated by the Lieutenant Governor in Council under this Act in respect of carrying out the undertaking, the amounts so certified shall be paid..."
In other words, it requires his consent after a certain time; and he is going to be holding on to the purse-strings as well. There is just no end to the powers the minister is going to have.
The Acting Speaker Mr. Hodgson): You are not speaking to the Speaker; you are speaking to your colleagues.
Mr. Roy: Oh no. I do not want in any way to neglect you, Mr. Speaker, although in my discourse I may get carried away.
I have never seen legislation such as this be so wide and so sweeping; I make that point again. Generally speaking, it was only two years ago that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing was created. It was created to take away the responsibility of the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs to deal with municipalities. That responsibility was given to the Minister of Muncipal Affairs and Housing, but for this legislation, by gosh, he is not taking chances. He has taken it over --
Hon. Mr. Wells: I did the Island legislation too.
Mr. Roy: But at that time, as I recall, the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs was dealing with municipalities; it is not now.
Not only has the minister taken over all these powers but in the process he has clearly insulted his friend the member for Ottawa South as well. He is one cabinet minister who does not relinquish power easily and he does not give up any jurisdiction willingly. He is one who is very jealous of the jurisdiction and the power given to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. I would hazard to guess that at some point in cabinet there must have been some strong words on the parts of the minister and his colleague the member for Ottawa South as to who should have jurisdiction for this legislation.
What is even more serious than insulting his colleague in cabinet is the fact that having given himself such powers under this legislation, powers to which he was not entitled, he then proceeds to do the following things. He comes to this House, and he has the gall and the charm -- I mean, he is a very charming fellow; he is as smooth as they come, Mr. Speaker. If it were not that you were doing such a great job in the chair, I would think he would give you some competition as one who is able to arrive at compromise and who is able to charm his colleagues in the House.
Mr. Mancini: Who are you talking about?
Mr. Roy: I am talking about the acting Speaker and how, as one who has shown charm and a facility for compromise, he can understand this situation in looking at the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. But the minister comes into the House and says: "Look, vote for this. Let's get this thing through. Let's not fool around." But he does not want to tell us where they are going to put this soil. He says: "We have to get it out of my riding; that's the first thing. Let's get it out of my riding."
One asks, "Where are you going to send it?" We know they have tried to send it to other areas. I am sure our critic, the member for Huron-Bruce, dealt with the fact that they tried to put it in a couple of other ridings belonging to other Tory cabinet ministers. By God, they were not welcome there.
Then they tried the old stunt. They said, "When things really get tough, let us see if we can't put this soil in a Liberal riding." They tried to force it on our colleague the member for Renfrew North (Mr. Conway). My colleague the member for Cornwall (Mr. Samis) points to my other colleague. We saw what they tried to do to him in South Cayuga about a dump site. We saw what happened there; that was the precedent.
Here we have the minister with a problem as touchy as radioactive material and he has the gall to come into the House and ask us for a blank cheque. That is what he is asking for basically. He is saying, "Give us the jurisdiction to go and dump it some place, but we do not dare tell you where."
It is a $64,000 question. It is going to be a surprise, and we have been given no hint. I ask my colleagues, has he given us any hint at at all where this soil is going? Will the minister help us? Will he take us into his confidence at some point and tell us where the soil is going?
I say to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, if he were on this side, would he trust the other party with such wide-ranging jurisdiction and powers to take this radioactive soil and dump it some unknown place? There are 125 members in here.
Hon. Mr. Wells: If it were anybody but me, he would put it in Vanier.
Mr. Roy: It could be. They are likely to do anything. In the last election they tried to foist Omer Deslauriers on us. Can you believe that, Mr. Speaker? They tried to give us Omer in 1981.
Mr. Samis: He wasn't radioactive either.
Mr. Roy: My colleague says he was not radioactive, but after the election it was just as though he was radioactive. He went right off to Brussels. In one jump, he was promoted to Brussels.
I do not know where the minister is going to put that soil. Could it be in the riding of my colleague the member for Perth (Mr. Edighoffer)? It could be in his riding. It could be in London. Who knows? Just because my colleague the member for Cornwall is somewhat misguided as to whom he bets for, the minister might try to take advantage of him and put it in Cornwall; I do not know. That is the problem we are facing.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will agree we cannot give the minister a blank cheque on such legislation. If he wants us to support him and if he wants the confidence of the House, or at least the confidence of a responsible opposition, he should at least tell us where he is sending the stuff.
The next point is that not only will he not tell us where he is going to send it but also he gives himself carte blanche under this bill to do what he wants. He makes it very clear; there is no pussyfooting around in this legislation. He has a section that says:
"7(1) The following do not apply in respect of the undertaking:
"1. The Environmental Assessment Act."
There is a principle of law that says, "He who seeks equity should have clean hands." I say to the minister, I am not sure he has clean hands. If he has such a good case, why does he want to circumvent the provisions of the Environmental Assessment Act? Has he given any explanation?
I listened to his opening remarks. I have searched Hansard to try to find out whether he has given an explanation as to why he wants to circumvent this legislation -- not the legislation of the federal government, which legislation he can take advantage of, and not the legislation of a foreign country, but his own statute. He wants to circumvent his own statute, the Environmental Assessment Act.
9:30 p.m.
Then, having cut off the member for Ottawa South from his responsibility under the statute, he says, "Not only will you not have jurisdiction under this statute, but the Planning Act does not apply." So that is out of the way too. If anything is in the way, he says, "Get out." Their trucks are coming with their radioactive soil, and out of the way goes the Environmental Assessment Act, the Planning Act and anything else that is in the way. "Get out. We are moving. We are coming through," as the member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Laughren) would say. "Move aside. We are coming through."
Then the bill says "the regulations and bylaws made under or in relation to the acts mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 2" do not apply. The minister does not take chances about anything. He says not only does the act not apply but also the regulations do not even apply. The minister is not taking chances about anything in this legislation.
In addition, not only will the statutes not apply but also, by gosh, there will be no hearing either. In subsection 2, the bill says: "Notwithstanding part V of the Environmental Protection Act, the director under the part is not required to hold a hearing..." There will be no hearing.
Can you believe this, Mr. Speaker? I will repeat it for you. They do not tell us where it is going. They say --
The Acting Speaker: Do you want me to answer?
Mr. Roy: They do not tell us where it is going.
The Acting Speaker: You are asking me a question.
Mr. Roy: Yes. They say, Mr. Speaker --
I am sorry. Did you want to say something, Mr. Speaker?
The Acting Speaker: If you keep asking the Speaker.
Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, can you believe this? I will repeat it for you. They say --
The Acting Speaker: Just go ahead. Take your time.
Mr. Roy: I am trying; there are so many things in this statute that I really do not know where to stop or where to begin, but I will start over again. They say, "We are not going to tell you where we are going to put it." That is the first thing. "No act is going to apply to this, no regulations, no hearing. And I am the boss. I am the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs; even though it is not my jurisdiction, I am doing this."
Is this the member for Scarborough North? I keep thinking of Macbeth, who says, "What is this I see before my eyes?" Is this the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs? Is he really giving himself such powers? I do not quite believe this.
So here we are: no statutes, no regulations. no hearing. Then the bill goes on to say in subsection 3: "No provision of any other act or of any regulation or bylaw applies or shall be applied so as to conflict with a provision of this act."
The minister does not take chances. He says, "If any of the Revised Statutes of Ontario or any of the Revised Statutes of Canada dare to conflict with my act, they do not apply." It is that simple. He is not taking chances: no statutes, no regulations, no hearings.
Did the minister miss anything? Let us look. He did miss something. He says, "We are not even going to ask for the assent of the electorate." There is a section there, section 8, that says, "It is not necessary to obtain the assent of the electors under section 149 of the Municipal Act...." Mr. Speaker, have you ever seen anything so dictatorial?
Some hon. members: Bill 179.
Mr. Roy: This makes Bill 179 look like a Sunday school prayer. The dictatorial powers given to the minister under this act --
Mr. Cassidy: If you oppose this one, you should oppose Bill 179 as well.
Mr. Roy: The member for Ottawa Centre should go back to his homework. If he wants a good mark at school, he has to go back and study for his exams.
To get back to this legislation, in my days here I have seldom seen a minister make such an outright grab for sheer power. This minister is the last person I would have thought would have sought to have such dictatorial powers. I really do not believe him.
I want to give one word of caution. I would think that having proceeded to circumvent all provincial statutes, regulations, hearings, the electorate and so on, the government may well have infringed one very important statute, and that is the Charter of Rights.
The minister knows that, because he was very much involved in the charter. That is his job; not this bill. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs looks after constitutions and charters of fundamental rights. That is his jurisdiction. The charter that he supported and went to Ottawa to sign and celebrate in April 1982 may well stop him in his tracks on this legislation. He may have gone too far.
It is one thing to be subtle and sort of slip things through so nobody hears about it, but did he really think he could get away with this? Did he think he could come into this place and make such an outright grab and nobody would notice?
Mr. Speaker, you will understand that those of us who are responsible to the electorate, to the people of Ontario, cannot allow such blanket approval. We cannot give the minister such wide-ranging powers. They are to correct what? Are the Russians coming? Is an attack threatening the safety of the whole province? Is that why such legislation is required? What is going on?
Mr. Cassidy: Has the member every heard of the mote and the beam?
Mr. Roy: Is the member for Ottawa Centre trying to say something? What is the former leader of the New Democratic Party saying'?
Mr. Cassidy: It is the mote and the beam. This is the mote, but it is bad enough that the member is supporting it.
Mr. Roy: Supporting it? I am not supporting it at all. We are not supporting this legislation.
Mr. Cassidy: You are supporting Bill 179.
The Acting Speaker: Order. The member will talk to the bill and forget about the interjections. Keep on going.
Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, are you going to rule him out of order?
The Acting Speaker: I am ruling both of you out of order.
Mr. Roy: I have enumerated the areas where the minister has made a brutal attempt against the civil liberties of the people of Ontario by taking this approach.
Mr. Cassidy: What about the public servants? Where was the member when the public servants' rights were being taken away'?
Mr. Roy: There is some frustration being expressed by one particular politician to my left, the member for Ottawa Centre. If he gets carried away in that way he will not be able to do his studies and it may threaten his marks for the next exam. Mr. Speaker, try to keep him under control.
Hon. Mr. Wiseman: Do you ever see him in Ottawa?
Mr. Roy: No, I never see him in Ottawa. He is busy at school.
Mr. R. F. Johnston: Albert is never there any more. He is in the House these days.
Mr. Roy: No, sir. I am not afraid to say that I spend a lot of time in my riding.
Mr. Cassidy: How many trials have you got booked on Friday?
The Acting Speaker: Order. Will the member for Ottawa East proceed with second reading of the bill and not be so repetitious? He has said the same thing about 10 times.
Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, if I say it 20 times it will not be enough to express the outrage I feel over this attempt to grab such power under provincial legislation. You will understand that we cannot accept that. To further complicate matters -- I am not finished; I am not finished at all -- there is a further item that must be brought to the attention of the minister, and that is section 9.
Not only is the government saying that it will not tell us where it is going to put it, that no statute or regulation will apply, that there will be no hearing in this case, that it does not want the consent of the electorate, but it is also saying that if it does something wrong in this process, there is no civil liability; it is saying it is immune.
Did you ever see such a thing, Mr. Speaker? This is Ontario we are talking about. In this province, a minister gives himself this type of dictatorial power but says that if anything should happen there is no civil liability; the government is immune.
There comes a point where even this minister should be blushing at making such a power grab. How in heaven's name can he have the gall to make such an attempt to be immune from all statutes, regulations and even our courts? He is beyond our courts. There is no way one can get at him under this particular legislation.
9:40 p.m.
The people on that side talked about a police bill a few years ago and about how dictatorial that was. Let me say that Bill 174 runs a close second. The minister has legislation approaching such powers. I am not kidding. We make fun of the power grab he has made, but how can he have the gall not only to be immune from all provincial statutes, hearings and even from the electorate, but now effectively to circumvent his civil liability, circumvent the courts of Ontario? How can he have the gall to make such a power grab, and in the process take over this legislation when he is the local member involved? The whole combination of this, the conflict --
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, can I ask a question of my friend, since I understand he is a very learned lawyer? Where does it say in there that we have circumvented all the civil laws? In which section is that?
Mr. Roy: I see this is a trick on the part of the minister. He is going to pretend now he has not read the legislation. First of all, it says in section 7 that a whole series of statutes do not apply, the Environmental Assessment Act, the Planning Act, the regulations and everything else. Then it says that no hearings apply. Then we look at section 9. I will read it very slowly and my colleagues can tell me who is right or wrong on this.
"No claim for damages or otherwise shall be commenced against the borough of Scarborough," -- that is the co-partner in this -- "a municipality that is the owner of a place designated by the Lieutenant Governor in Council or an employee of either of them for any act done in good faith in the execution or the intended execution of any duty or authority under this Act." That is clear enough.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Read the rest of it.
Mr. Roy: I have read far enough.
Hon. Mr. Wells: No. no.
Mr. Roy: The minister wants me to read the whole statute. It is against the rules, but I will do it anyway. It goes on "or for any alleged neglect or default in the execution in good faith of any such duty or authority, but the claim may be enforced against the crown in the same manner as if the borough of Scarborough, the municipality and their employees who are agents of the crown, and, for the purpose, the crown is not relieved of liability by reason of subsections 5(2) and (4) of the Proceedings Against the Crown Act."
It basically says that all the minister is doing is in good faith. That is what the courts have been saying. To all intents and purposes, the minister has no liability, because the defence is absolute. They say they are acting in good faith. That is the defence. Those of us who have done some jurisprudence know very well that this defence of acting in good faith is very nearly an absolute defence in many civil actions. They say, "Well, you know, I was acting in good faith."
To all intents and purposes. the minister has relieved himself and the borough -- well, I should not put it that way -- he has relieved the ministry, himself as minister, his servants, et cetera, from civil liability. This is because their defence is very simply that they were acting in good faith.
Mr. Speaker, having said this, I am sure you are sitting there incredulous. You do not believe what I am saying. You are saying it is not possible in Ontario --
Hon. Mr. Wells: The legislative counsel advisers under the gallery have just confirmed it is not possible.
Mr. Roy: I will tell the minister what anybody who reads this statute knows full well. He has given himself almost absolute power. In closing --
Mr. Cassidy: Your limo is coming at 10, eh?
Mr. Roy: No, not until 10:30. I have lots of time. In fact, maybe I should continue just a moment longer and discuss the responsibility of the loyal opposition to oppose such legislation as strenuously and enthusiastically as possible.
I ask my good friend the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs why, in God's name, did he need such sweeping powers to correct a problem in his riding? Why was it necessary to make such a power grab? We are sympathetic people here. We would have understood that the minister is trying to move some soil from point A to point B. We have co-operated. Generally speaking, we are a very effective but co-operative opposition. Why did the minister require such wide powers without an adequate explanation, at least without one that most of us have heard so far?
We on this side cannot give the minister authority to proceed in this fashion. Those of us who still feel there are some civil liberties left in Ontario -- my colleagues who have spoken against this bill and all those present this evening -- will oppose the minister as strenuously as we can. As much as we have faith in his good judgement, as much as we have trusted him in the past, no ministry and no government should have such wide, sweeping powers.
Since the minister will not provide a better explanation, my colleagues and I will follow the lead of our Environment critic, who has set the tone of this debate, and we will vote against this legislation. In so doing, Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will fully understand our reasons and will be sympathetic to the approach we have taken.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak succinctly against the principles that are encased in this bill, because I think they point out a problem we have had in Ontario and Canada for some time.
The first objection I want to put on the record is the title of the bill. This bill is entitled, An Act to provide for the Removal of Certain Waste from the Malvern Area. One almost gets the impression they are going to have an extra garbage collection next week in Scarborough, and that is not what we are talking about at all. Unfortunately, the tenor of the title moves its way on through the bill and, in fact, through the history of handling radioactive waste in Ontario and Canada.
We have two levels of government which are hotly and heavily into the use of radioactive materials. Ontario, in this instance, and the federal government are both anxious to establish as clearly as they can that the use of radioactive materials is very necessary in this day and age. It is very productive. It produces jobs, and the use of radioactive materials in that one segment has a very high profile. They have developed a series of projects with which they want to be identified. Yet, at the end of the process, where radioactive waste is left, both levels want to be conspicuous by their absence. Both of them want to abandon that.
It is an irony that this bill is brought before us by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. If we were talking about other dangerous forms of waste, it would be the Minister of the Environment who would bring such a bill before us. If we were talking about a problem in a particular ministry or municipality, it would be the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett). But, in this particular instance, because it is a complicated piece of business, we have two levels of government involved, so the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs presents us with the bill.
It is remarkable from several points of view. If one were to take a stroll around Queen's Park and through the University of Toronto, one would find areas where radioactive materials are being used. Within a radius of four or five blocks one would find the university, hospitals and research facilities which use radioactive material. There are signs indicating there is some danger involved at the end of that particular process. It seems the farther away one gets from Queen's Park, the less the danger becomes. Certainly the signing ceases and there appear to be much fewer precautions.
The best example I can think of to draw an exact parallel to what is proposed in the principles of this bill is an action that was taken by a fellow from Bancroft by the name of Larry Tadman, who was living in the Bancroft area amid the tailings where it was once proposed that this waste would be shipped.
9:50 p.m.
In that area, there are not very many signs saying, "This is radioactive waste." The governments of Ontario and Canada go to great lengths to assure people that low-level radiation will not really hurt anybody. Contrary to what is contained in this bill, Larry Tadman said, "Listen, I am going to move some low-level radioactive waste from Bancroft to Queen's Park." In this bill, the minister goes to some length to avoid telling us where he will move it. Larry said: "I will tell you how I am going to take it there. I am going to put it in a little knapsack with a toy truck and walk from Bancroft to Queen's Park."
It was interesting to follow that particular exercise because it was the exact opposite of what is being proposed in this legislation. The closer he got to Toronto, the more attention was paid to him until, when the crowning glory arrived and Larry Tadman arrived at the front of Queen's Park, what was seen to be just normal everyday stuff in Bancroft all of a sudden was cause to call out the bomb squad in downtown Toronto.
A number of members went out front to see this arrival. The security guards went out and marked off the area. Here was Larry with a little package of dirt from Bancroft in a little toy truck. He kind of left it there with a little notifying sign, because when one gets close to downtown Toronto one has to identify radioactive material. Larry left the toy truck, the bag of dirt and the sign marking it as radioactive material.
The security came out, the Metropolitan Toronto bomb squad arrived and out came the aprons to protect them while handling the radioactive material that Larry carried on his back all the way from Bancroft. We watched as they tried to remove this material from in front of Queen's Park. After several unsuccessful attempts to get the dirt and the toy dump truck safely into a disposal unit, the most interesting part of that exercise was to watch one of the bomb squad tie a string to the front bumper of the toy truck and attempt to pull it ever so delicately over to the disposal unit. Unfortunately, there was a spill.
I am not sure whether the AECB was called in on that spill, but I imagine it was, because in every spill of radioactive material it is called in and everybody is notified. I watched that process. It was actually just a little package of dirt from Bancroft that everybody in Bancroft has learned to live with for some time. The closer it got to Queen's Park the more dangerous it became, the more threat it was to people around here. Unfortunately, the attitude of the governments of Ontario and Canada is that as long as one can get this stuff away from where people can see it, it is okay. The further one gets away from it, the safer the stuff becomes. That has been a traditional attitude.
One of the things that bothers me about this type of legislation is that it begins the process by trampling over things which many of us feel are important and which, on other occasions, the government of Ontario touts as being extremely important as well. If one sees ministers of the crown in other jurisdictions explaining environmental law as it is written in Ontario, one will find them proposing what is very good environmental law on paper. The only flaw is that we have never used this law in Ontario.
Every time we turn around, the first step of the action is to set aside all of the environmental laws. We wind up with the tremendous bitter irony that somebody at some point in time wrote some very good environmental legislation for this province and ever since then this government has spent every conceivable effort it can muster to set aside those laws, to get them out of the way.
As one runs down the exemptions that are covered in this particular proposal, it really follows just about everything I could think of that one could use to try to take a look at what is being proposed by the government. When one gets right down to it, there are a couple of other things that have to be put on the record today too.
The member for Hastings-Peterborough did something for which, quite frankly, I want to commend him. I think this House would be a better House if more members did it. He looked at something that was proposed by his own government and said, "This is just plain stupid." He took a little longer to say it than that, but that is my understanding of what he put on the record.
I think that is damned good advice for the members on this side, because I heard in previous debate today members saying this is kind of a "trust me" bill. I do not believe that is so. One does not have to be a trusting person to accept this kind of legislation. One has to be a damned stupid person. There is a lot of difference between trust and stupidity. That is what the minister is trying to push us into here, because it says, "Throw out the window all of the laws which we purport to have," and it also says, "Throw out the window those normal laws which citizens might use to protect themselves."
What really bothers me immensely about this particular proposal and the principles that are in this bill is that it takes a problem which we have known we have had for some period of time and it says that to deal with this problem we need to dispense with the laws of Ontario and the laws of Canada and anything else that anybody could find in there. It is fairly explicit about that.
More than that, it says that the minister of the crown, through that technique that is known as the Lieutenant Governor in Council, may by himself, in secret, decide what he wants done. The normal legislative process, as I understand it, in anybody's parliament, is that a government decides collectively what it wants to do. After it has decided what it wants to do, it prints it up in a bill and tables it in the House and then the rest of us get a chance to say, "Now we understand what the government's legislative proposal is."
This particular bill flies directly in the face of that. It does not even give us a sweet, faint clue as to what it is the government wants to do. It does not tell us where, it does not tell us how, it does not tell us when. It says, "We will decide that in secret."
That flies in the face of what is supposed to be the process of a parliament. I believe the bill is a dangerous precedent to let stand. I want to say that if members looked at this bill in another jurisdiction they would say it certainly is a remarkable piece of drafting, a remarkable piece of legislation, and yet if they read it they would have a difficult time figuring out exactly what the government is proposing to do here. Why is the municipality known as the borough of Scarborough involved in this? Why do they not do it themselves? Why are they having them do the work for them? Why do they not identify the site?
If I were looking for legislation to deal with this kind of problem, it strikes me that I would be anxious to have the various environmental laws put in place.
It seems to me I would want to answer those questions. I would want to exercise the environmental laws, the Environmental Assessment Act and the Environmental Protection Act that we have in Ontario and say, "Listen, people of Ontario, we are going to use the fine environmental laws that were written in the 1970s; we are going to go through this process to make you understand exactly what is happening."
It seems to me they should be anxious to have people use those laws for the purposes for which they were designed, which is to ascertain what is a suitable site; what is a suitable means of transportation; what other alternatives there could be.
What I find particularly obnoxious about the bill is that we went through this exercise once before just in the last year or so. At that time, the government made a mistake that it does not want to make this time. It identified a site for liquid industrial waste and went through all the rigmarole about assuring everyone that this was just hunky-dory, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with that site, and that in fact it was a good site.
After a bit more pressure, they decided that maybe they better take a look at it. Once again, they would not use all of the environmental laws but decided to have Donald Chant take a look at it. Of course, after he took a look at it he decided it was not a safe site.
We have seen that happen again and again, so it is not as though this is our first experience with trying to remove some dangerous materials from one area to another and to determine how we should try to handle them, either in the short term or the long term. The fact remains that this bill, if members want a casual reading of it, says the government of Ontario now wants to get into the midnight haulage business. It says that it wants to have that privacy about what it does and it wants to determine just exactly where the Big Blue Machine is going to drop this stuff.
We could almost read into this bill that it would like to do this under cover of darkness and leave it somewhere and perhaps not bother to tell us about it at all, let alone before doing it. My problem with the legislation is that it takes something which I find to be one of this society's problems and decides it will exempt it from any careful examination. That is my real difficulty with it.
I will bet most of us would say that in every community that is represented in this Legislature there is a problem of a similar nature. It may not always be radioactive waste that is the difficulty, but I would bet that in every constituency across Ontario there is some form of waste product from something that happened a long time ago, as is exactly the case here, and no one has quite resolved what to do with the stuff. No one knows how to handle it.
It seems to me this would have been an excellent opportunity for the government of Ontario to do two things. First and foremost, it could ensure the safety of those people in the Malvern area who, through no fault of their own, have been exposed to this low-level radiation.
10 p.m.
It seems to me it does not require an act of the Legislature to accomplish this; that the government of Ontario could have acted to remove that soil and store it on a temporary basis many months ago -- in fact, according to some information I have, many years ago, when they first learned that the soil was there, that it was radioactive and that there was low-level radiation that might pose a health risk.
That is the first order of business. Why did it take so long to get any kind of act on at all and -- without blaming the Atomic Energy Control Board, the federal government or anybody else -- get the damned stuff out of there? It seems to me that should have been the government's first instinct.
lts second instinct should have been to take all of the laws we now have to resolve the problem: to have the environmental assessment and to deal with the matters of protecting the environment and the health of our citizens. Why do they not have that done? It seems to me that in Ontario we have taken a number of instances -- all of the agencies out there that are supposed to be looking after the health of the public, the storage or the transportation of dangerous materials -- and we hate all turned a blind eye to these things until we now have a substantial problem that we must deal with. Then when we get to the point where it is recognized that we must deal with it, we deal with it by exempting this process and that process and, in fact, doing it in secret.
In conclusion, the problems I have with this particular bill are form, format and technique. It seems unusual to have the minister come before us with this piece of legislation, for it does not resolve the problem as I understand it in any part of the province other than the community known in Scarborough as the Malvern area. It does not do anything at all for anybody else anywhere else in Ontario having to do with radioactive waste or any other kind of waste that might pose a health hazard.
It strikes me, too, that an opportunity has once again been missed when the government of Ontario could finally have looked at a problem in a straightforward manner and dealt with it using the legislation it has.
Finally, it is totally unnecessary and should not be acceptable to this House to put this kind of authority into this kind of process. If the government of Ontario has decided it wants to take legislative action, let it print it up in a bill. Let the minister tell us what sites he has under consideration for the disposal of this waste, let him describe for us the process whereby the waste will be removed, transported and stored, either on a temporary basis initially or preferably on a long-term basis. Let us do that openly, honestly and above board. Is it necessary that it always be dealt with in this kind of clandestine manner?
I regret that the bill is before us in this form. It is a problem that is not isolated in the community of Malvern. It is a problem that is around the province. The examples of the cleanup of low-level radioactive waste that we have seen, for example. in Cobourg and Port Hope are hardly models to be followed, and the opportunity was there for the government of Ontario to do those two urgent things.
First, it could have resolved the problem of the soil in Malvern, yet it has chosen to wait it out on this one. Second, it could have provided for us a piece of legislation that at the very least -- and I think as members of the Legislature we have a right to expect this -- would tell us something, would not tell us all of the exemptions, would not tell us it would be done by order in council but would give us some faint clue as to what the government had in mind here. The minister may give us a clue or two as he closes the debate. I would beg him to do that; I think it is incumbent on him.
I want to reiterate as I finish my remarks that putting legislation in front of anybody's parliament that does not tell the members anything about what the government's real intentions are is a matter that the government ought to take to heart. The next time they have a problem of this kind and they want to resolve it by legislation, they should at least put in front of us legislation that tells us what they are going to do.
The principles contained in this bill ought to be repugnant to anybody's parliament anywhere in the world, because the bill puts the members on this side and all of the members on the opposite side, only one of whom I have seen have the temerity to speak out against the bill, in a position where they are not asked to be well-informed individual legislators dealing with a government proposal; it really asks one to buy something one has no knowledge of. Neither, I take it, does any member on the government side. It is a tragedy to reduce a legislative body to that format. There are other forms of government in the world which are uniquely designed to accept this kind of proposal, but one which purports to be a democracy in a parliamentary system should not be reduced to facing this kind of legislation.
Mr. Samis: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak briefly on this bill, especially from the perspective of a member from eastern Ontario. It may be 300 miles or so from the actual site in question, but I want to express some of the concerns we have in eastern Ontario.
Essentially, my opposition to this bill is based on a simple fact: The minister is asking us to sign a blank cheque, pure and simple. In the overall legislative process and in parliamentary tradition, it is completely unacceptable for an opposition to be expected to sign a blank cheque, pure and simple, such as this bill represents.
I want to take the opportunity to commend my colleague the member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Pollock). We in eastern Ontario have to stand up because of the implications involved in this bill. I commend him for standing up to this bill and representing what I consider to be the interests of the constitutents of his riding rather than the interests of the whip or of his caucus. I hope the other members from eastern Ontario, especially my friend the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor), will stand up for the interests of their constituents rather than for their caucus or political party.
We express concern because of the record of this government which I will get to in a few minutes. It strikes me as almost unfathomable that a minister as experienced, as knowledgeable and as astute as the member who is guiding this bill through the House would present us with such a bill.
I again give credit to the member for Hastings-Peterhorough. He asked a question which I think was the most germane of the entire debate: "If this is not dangerous material, why are you moving it?" I recall vividly the answer from the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton). He said, "To protect the mental health of the residents of the area." That really makes one wonder when one considers the possibility of eastern Ontario being designated a dumping ground for this waste.
I fully accede that if there is any question of doubt, any question of safety whatsoever, let us err on the side of safety. I agree with my colleague the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) who made that point vividly earlier in this debate. I reiterate, we in eastern Ontario would agree with the idea that, if one is going to err, make it on the side of safety.
What guarantees does this bill offer to the people of Ontario or eastern Ontario? Absolutely none. It gives us no idea where the soil is going, no idea of the circumstances under which it will be transported, no time frame whatsoever, no protection, no security; no guarantees whatsoever. It is a blank cheque, pure and simple, for this government to solve a political problem that has arisen in this riding.
I can appreciate the member is responding to his constitutents. They want to get rid of it as soon as possible and that is fair enough. The member is responsive, he is the House leader, and he is an influential member of the cabinet. That is why we have this bill before us tonight. But the key question is, where is it going from that riding in terms of the rest of the province? Under what circumstances is it being transported'?
The loopholes contained in the bill are absolutely incredible as other speakers have mentioned. It is totally exempted from the Planning Act. It is exempted from the Environmental Assessment Act, from the Municipal Act, from the Environmental Protection Act, from the Dangerous Goods Transportation Act; from virtually every other existing piece of legislation. We are talking about dangerous material. What legislative protection are we affording the citizenry, the ordinary people of Ontario, if this is truly a question of dangerous goods being transported?
In terms of transportation, we have passed a specific bill to protect the rights of people in Ontario on our highways and byways in the transportation of dangerous goods. But this bill emasculates those other pieces of legislation and the minister says "trust us." That was what it boils down to: "Don't worry about it. Trust us."
10:10 p.m.
I would dare to suggest, without getting excessively partisan, that if we look at the results and the record of this government since the last election on March 19, 1981, there is no ground, no basis or reason whatsoever why this government should be trusted. Whether we look at its record in terms of the budget, hitting the ordinary people with higher taxes; at its record in terms of Suncor. investing $650 million; or at the fact it has imposed the most draconic legislation in the last decade in Ontario in wage control legislation, on what basis should anybody in this Legislature or anybody in this province trust this government?
This is the government that lives by the polls. It is a government that has been in power for far too long, and it cynically manipulates this whole legislative process. I would suggest, leaving apart this environmental record, that there is no reason, cause or basis whatsoever for trusting this government. The environmental record really makes a mockery of the legislation. On paper, I suppose we could say the legislation is fairly progressive. We could say that compared to some other provinces, it is actually ahead of them.
Look at the actual de facto record of the government: At South Cayuga, 12 sites were designated and the government totally ignored that and imposed its particular option on a Liberal riding in Ontario until the people virtually rebelled against it. Look at the virtually obscene record of Darlington, where the government has emasculated any form of local planning, environmental assessment or environmental protection. It said at one stage it would cost only $3 billion; now, we are up to over $10 billion and we will probably hit the $15 billion, if not the $20 billion figure, before that monstrous project is ever completed.
It makes a mockery of environmental legislation in Ontario. I think every member in this House recalls the saga of Base Borden. My colleague from Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton) has cited other instances where the environmental legislation has been ignored on a local basis with various projects. Very simply, on what basis should we trust this government on a bill like this? It has demonstrated its disregard, its arbitrary view of the bill in the sense that it can exploit, abuse and circumvent the environmental legislation at any opportunity whatsoever.
In some of the statistics that were published recently, I think in the Toronto Star, about the whole problem of industrial waste -- I will very briefly cite a few figures. We are talking about 330 million gallons of industrial waste. The Ontario Waste Management Corp. found that there is six times more industrial waste than was originally estimated. Only 45 per cent of the flotsam and jetsam of industry receives any treatment before it is dumped. Five per cent of the industrial waste in this province somehow mysteriously vanishes; 25 per cent of it gets into our sewage systems and only 10 per cent of it is recycled. I would suggest that is just the tip of the iceberg. Here we are talking about something that is very tangible, something that is identifiable. We will probably discover in upcoming years things that may shock citizens of this province in their actual impact.
This bill is asking us to grant far too much power. We in eastern Ontario have a concern. Since the Cayuga fiasco, we are very aware of the fact that studies are being conducted in eastern Ontario as to alternative sites. We know that in the far east of Ontario, where I come from, sites are being considered in Prescott-Russell and in Glengarry county as well. We feel very strongly that we produce only five per cent of the industrial waste in the province versus 70 per cent being produced here in southern Ontario. We have a concern with a bill like this, that it might just be the first step towards making eastern Ontario the dumping ground for the rest of Ontario, especially for southern Ontario.
I understand the concerns and the fears of people in northern Ontario in terms of nuclear waste. We have a specific concern with industrial waste, especially the more dangerous forms of industrial waste. I feel very strongly, coming from Cornwall in eastern Ontario, that those who produce the industrial waste in their region must dispose of it; they must take full responsibility for its disposition in their particular zone for their region and must not consider eastern or northern Ontario in any way, shape or form as a dumping ground for their waste.
My colleague the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Charlton) made some very specific suggestions. If not Malvern, he suggested very specifically Pickering and Bruce: two alternatives that meet the current environmental standards, which are acceptable and which can handle this waste. They already deal with all sorts of nuclear waste. This bill would receive a far more positive reaction on this side of the House if the minister would give us some idea where this waste is going to go. My colleague has suggested two places. I would be interested in hearing the ministers response to those specific suggestions.
In the bill's present, totally open-ended form we are simply being asked to sign a blank cheque. I know the good people of my riding would never want me to sign a blank cheque on a serious matter like this.
The Acting Speaker Mr. Cousens): Does any other member wish to participate in this debate?
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all the honourable members who have contributed to this debate. I remember one of the first public speaking classes I went to many years ago. The first lesson was that when you are going to make a major speech, you start with some incident, story or event that will capture people's attention. There is no question that this bill has finally captured the attention of this House on what has been a very important matter to me and to the people in my riding, particularly those people on McClure Crescent, for a long time.
This bill may not be perfect. Members have pointed out some of the possible imperfections in the bill. I am not going to stand here and defend every sentence, every thought and every idea in the bill. It was an attempt to draw the attention of the members to a very specific problem and to enlist their support and help in that problem.
There is a reason for the bill, of course, and there is a reason it is in its particular form. For some two years now, some of us have been attempting to remedy the problem that exists on McClure Crescent. We have all agreed that there is a problem, that the soil with its radioactivity, low as it is, should be removed. It is a hazard of some nature and it should be removed. That particular action began very soon after the identification of the problem in that area.
I point out to my friend, although he may have felt there was some identification in 1975, there really was no identification. A document came to light indicating there may have been dumpings in Scarborough somewhere and in the Malvern area. When the Atomic Energy Control Board and the national health agency went in to test, they found no evidence of any high levels of radiation in 1975.
The medical officer of health in Scarborough has those reports, so although there was some indication of dumpage in the area then, no evidence of it was found in 1975. It was not until 1980 that actual evidence was found. At the time, then, we would have to say proper action was taken. An attempt was made to identify the problem there. No problem was seen. It was not until the identification in 1980 that the actual problem of higher levels of radioactivity in the soil came to light.
There have been many attempts to handle the problem since then. Many different locations have been suggested and for various reasons nothing has happened so far. Those sites have not been used. It has not been a very simple thing to come up with a place to put the soil.
I notice my friend the member for Oshawa (Mr. Breaugh) has left. He wondered why the borough of Scarborough was doing it and so forth. I could have explained that to him.
I point out to members of this House that this bill was introduced on July 7 and it is now October --
10:20 p.m.
Mr. McClellan: Was that not the last day of the session? Don't blame us for that.
Hon. Mr. Wells: No, no. All I am saying is that it is now October 26.
Mr. McClellan: That is the minister's fault, not our fault.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): Order.
Hon. Mr. Wells: I am not blaming anybody. All I am saying is that I had not heard anything from anybody about this bill, except the residents of McClure Crescent, until this debate today.
Mr. McClellan: This is the first time we have had a chance.
Hon. Mr. Wells: If there was the sort of stature of concern that I have heard in the very eloquent speeches here tonight, I am surprised that someone has not asked me a question about it.
Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege. There were questions raised in the Legislature about this matter in June. I believe it was June 22, 1982. The minister should look it up.
Hon. Mr. Wells: The member should just sit down. There were questions raised about the matter, but there were no particular protests about the nature or form of this bill until everyone got to the House. I note the level of protest rose as the sitting went on.
Mr. Roy: I had many sleepless nights also.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Yes, I am sure the member did. What I began --
Mr. R. F. Johnston: This is ridiculous, We have had Bills 127 and 129 to deal with, which kept us occupied.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Well, that is all right.
Mr. Nixon: We didn't realize how difficult it was.
Mr. Roy: The Minister of the Environment (Mr. Norton) even protested the bill. I should put that on the record.
The Acting Speaker: Order. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs has the floor.
Hon. Mr. Wells: What I want to say is that I am most interested in bringing about some action that will remove that soil. In gaining the attention of this House, I had hoped to elicit some suggestions as to where this soil might go.
I am very pleased, and I hate to say this, that my friends from the third party have come forward with some suggestions. I have not heard any from the official opposition. They have been very vocal in criticizing the bill but they have not come forward with any suggestions.
Mr. Nixon: You said you wouldn't let it go to Beare Road. I have your quote.
Hon. Mr. Wells: I indicated I was in favour of the Beare Road landfill site after the other sites were not available. I have not seen any other member of this House who has been willing to stand up, take a problem such as this and have it handled in his or her own riding. I would be very pleased to see anyone do that.
The federal member and I have sat down and talked about this matter, and I must say the federal member agrees with the action I have taken, and the borough of Scarborough to a man, except for the mayor of Scarborough, voted to use the Beare Road landfill site as a temporary storage facility. As far as I am concerned, that is the proper place for temporary storage. That is what had been proposed. I had believed that would be put in this legislation. I thought we should put it there.
However, as the Environment critic for the Liberal Party pointed out, there is, currently, a court case concerning the legality of this bill, brought by the people who live in the vicinity of the Beare Road landfill site and who are attempting to challenge in court the legality of this Legislature to pass such a bill.
I point out that without legislation like this, there is no power for the province to pay for the transportation of this soil. We have to have some kind of legislative authority to undertake this action to remove the soil. Therefore, a bill such as this is needed.
I am not saying that we have to have removal of all the powers. I want to point out that my friend the member for Ottawa East (Mr. Roy) is absolutely wrong in his assessment of a removal of the powers to take civil legal action. The borough of Scarborough and the owner of the designated place, or wherever the soil goes, is a municipality and its employees are protected from liability in respect of the undertaking, but the burden of such liability is assumed by the crown.
In other words, what we are doing with this bill is asking a local municipality, if it wishes and if the residents in the area -- the local municipality in which the problem is -- wish to undertake on our behalf, the Legislature's behalf and the government's behalf, to perform the action, remove that soil and we will pay the cost.
We are not imposing on them any legal liability. We are saying that in doing that job for us it will not be liable. If it is sued by anyone, the crown will be liable. The crown will assume all the liabilities that would normally rest with the municipality or its employees.
Mr. Roy: As long as they are acting in good faith; it is pretty wide.
Hon. Mr. Wells: It maybe pretty wide, but the member left the impression it was not possible for anyone to sue in this matter.
Mr. Roy: I did not say that. I said you removed the liability clause. You have a perfect defence.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Oh, I am sorry. The member left the impression this right was being removed. The right is not being removed. A person who feels aggrieved will be able to sue the crown, not the borough of Scarborough.
Mr. Roy: Sure they can sue but you have an absolute defence.
Hon. Mr. Wells: The intention is the actual work will be carried out by the engineering firm that would have done it for the Atomic Energy Control Board, would have done it for this government or for the Ministry of the Environment if it had taken the responsibility, or will do it for the borough of Scarborough. This government will pay for the removal of that material. There will be no particular problem, I sense, with those provisions.
Because the Beare Road landfill site was under some kind of cloud, and because we felt we should go through this process once with legislation in this House and not a number of times, no site was named. I recognize that is a problem and I would rather have a site named.
I will tell the members tonight, this bill will go to committee of the whole House. When we deal with it in committee of the whole House, we will move amendments to put in the name of the site as a temporary storage site, and the period of time the material will stay in that site. I think that is reasonable. It is what I would like. It is what I have always wanted. It is easier to say that, of course, than it is to get --
Mr. Cassidy: Why have all this debate? Why did you wave the bill like a red rag in front of everybody in this House by not naming the site?
Hon. Mr. Wells: Because I am not ready to name the site even today; there is still work to be done in that regard. Contrary to everything everyone has said on the other side of the House, we do not have any site picked except for what I already gave as my preference: the Beare Road landfill site. If we can use the Beare Road landfill site, that will be the site named, knowing that may still have to go to court.
I might indicate to the members I already have had talks with the Attorney General (Mr. McMurtry). The Attorney General has indicated he will move under the Judicial Review Procedure Act and refer a question concerning the legality of the bill to the Court of Appeal to speed the process along so we will not be going through a number of courts with a number of appeals. Although that may take a month or two, it will probably speed the process along. That is being put in motion at the present time.
What I am saying to the members is I am going to suggest we do not even have the vote on the bill tonight. I will adjourn the debate in a minute and, when the bill goes to the committee of the whole House, we will put in the name of the site and we will also put in the time limit of the temporary storage site.
I am sorry, the Attorney General is applying not under the Judicial Review Procedure Act, but under the Constitutional Questions Act. I am not a lawyer. They will not even give me a Q.C. He is referring it under the Constitutional Questions Act to five judges of the Court of Appeal of Ontario. That will speed the process along.
10:30 p.m.
But as I say, when we go to committee of the whole House, we will put in the name of the site, we will indicate a temporary storage site, we will indicate the length of time it will stay there and we will indicate those other sections of the act that will not be necessary when the site is there. The only reason some of those sections, those exemptions from acts, are there is so that we can find a temporary storage site without taking an unreasonable length of time.
Just to get the sense of what my friends said when they suggested the sites, I listened very, very carefully, and they did not indicate that there should be an environmental hearing on a temporary storage facility. Did they or did they not? No, they did not feel there should be one.
Mr. McClellan: As long as it is guaranteed on the permanent site.
Hon. Mr. Wells: As long as an environmental hearing is guaranteed on a permanent storage facility and that, of course, would always be guaranteed. There would be no attempt to remove that.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Wells, the debate was adjourned.
The House adjourned at 10:32 p.m.